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Like the last time when we interviewed Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, this time also Honhaar Goonda was the driving force behind the decision to interview Kailash Kher. And like last time, Sourav Bhuyan followed up for getting an appointment.
Sourav and I met up with Kailash Kher for an interview at his studio at the Kailasa Studios in Mumbai. It was a free wheeling interview in which Kailash shared his experiences about everything from his struggle days to the formation of the band Kailasa to his south Indian movie experience to their latest soundtrack Dasvidaniya.
A small intro about the Kailasa band for those who came in late - Kailasa is a group whose main members are Kailash Kher, Naresh Kamath and Paresh Kamath. Naresh & Paresh are brothers. The music is composed by the trioka and the lyrics …

Persepolis was probably the only animation movie to release in India which was not the usual kiddy fare and not based on any mythological charecters- what a relief!

Must admit that the Oscar Nomination it received was truly deserved; just imagine a black and white , 2D animation movie getting full houses in theatres! Based on a graphic novel of the same name, Marjane Satrapi’s movie was a sheer delight;

The charm of the film lies in the ‘traditional’ use of animation, ensuring the experiences of Marjan’s life are not displaced by complex, detailed post-production imagery, characteristic of most recent animated films. The texture of Persepolis is perplexingly simple yet potent.

For those who missed watching in theatres, here is some good news! Original Persepolis DVDs are now available across stores in India.

Graphic novel buffs may balk at 360 pages compacted into 90 minutes, but the captivating world of …

With Slumdog Millionaire releasing in a few hours… things get hotter, spicier and very, very interesting… David Chen of /Film met Danny Boyle for an interview and guess what’s Danny Boyle’s Playlist? Click the play button below to hear the interview (courtesy : /Film)

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Snapshot of the interview (be ready to jump!)
00:00 What are some of your favorite movies?
00:30 Apocalypse Now
01:50 The five-hour version of Apocalypse Now
02:20 Nick Roeg, Walkabout, Don’t Look Now, The Man Who Fell To Earth, Bad Timing, Eureka
03:20 The Uncertainty of Narrative
04:10 Bollywood Inspirations
05:40 Satya
06:00 Company, Black Friday
06:20 Nick Park
06:55 The Wrong Trousers, Apocalypto
08:08 Which filmmakers inspired you to get into film?

(news tip: PhoenixNu)

iView Author: Varun Grover (Mumbai, India)

Email: varun.grover26 [at] gmail [dot] com

Dasvidaniya – Life and death of a common man

I know Shashant Shah since the days when he was directing that whacky, irreverent ‘The Great Indian Comedy Show (TGICS)’ (I was one of the writers, while Vinay Pathak, Ranvir Sheorey, Gaurav Gera, Suresh Menon, Purvi and Kiku formed the stellar ensemble) on TV.

He again teamed up with Vinay and Ranvir to direct and produce ‘Ranvir, Vinay aur Kaun’, and that’s why it was a bit of a surprise to see his directorial-debut Dasvidaniya’s songs and promos having a lingering sadness, a slice-of-life feel to it. Though one could spot a similar team as ‘Bheja Fry’ and ‘Mithya’ (Rajat Kapoor, …

All three sat together, perhaps for the first time ever. Another first - Gulzar providing lyrics to Ghai’s directorial venture. An interesting and engaging interview this, just by the fact of putting these three heavyweights together… though I wish Anupama Chopra could have put forth a few questions beyond the “how was it like..” types. Still this one is a real pleasure!

Video tip: Rusted Rick

The movie which enforced the French President Jacques Chirac to change laws in France is now in releasing on 24th October in India at PVR Cinemas in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore !

‘Days of Glory ‘ is a true war story directed by Rachid. It has won a handful of awards including Best Actor at the Festival de Cannes and Best Film at the 2007 Lumière Awards. Probably one of the most influential war films, the story revolves around four Algerian men who join the French army as soldiers to liberate France from the Nazi enemy.

For those interested in watching it, here are the show-timings –

Days of Glory:

PVR Juhu, Mumbai – 8:30pm

PVR Forum Mall, Bangalore- 7.40 pm

PVR Saket, Delhi- 9pm

The director was even selected as the jury member at the Festival de Cannes 2008- below is an interesting interview of Rachid Bouchareb – courtesy Films …

Last Saturday, after some relentless follow up, Sourav Bhuyan calls me up saying, “Dude we finally got the appointment with SEL!!” After that there was some hectic emailing of questions back n forth, with Honhaar Goonda doubling up as a moderator for the questions, and giving us some valuable interview tips. Most of the questions were formed by many of the PFC authors.
Finally, the day arrived and we found ourselves outside the Purple Haze studio for the interview. Shankar Mahadevan was busy in another interview that had been already scheduled. While waiting for his interview to get over, we chatted up with Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa.
Ehsaan Noorani talked about some of their upcoming projects like My Name is Khan, 13B (tamil), Wake Up Sid, …

Amidst the interview (K J Singh: Interview Part One) there were several occasions where interesting topics came up. Interacting with K J Singh was a learning experience because he shared so many of his experiences and insightful thoughts. Hence, it was not much of a surprise for us when he mentioned the fact the he teaches at University of Mumbai and at a private set up too.
Producer’s Role…
He said that a music producer should a be like a “bouncing board “. A producer is the person who is in the position to validate the work, which the artist is working on.
Rabbi’s Bulla Ki Jaana..
He had met Rabbi, many years ago, in Delhi, as a young, angst ridden guitar player. His rendering of the famous folklore Heer was quite unusual. They met again in 1999 when Sony music was almost …

The word “Sound” holds a different meaning for me post interviewing K J Singh.
A little introduction is necessary because this man has been associated with all the possible positions that encompasses music and sound in India. He has worked on Films Background Score & soundtracks like Satya, Maqbool, Rage De Basanti, Omkara, Black Friday and many more. Also he has produced the greatest Indian band ‘Indian Ocean’ and Rabbi’s Shergill debut album ‘Rabbi’. I would like to congratulate Mr.Singh for winning the National Award this year for Audiography for the film “Omkara”. (A full fledged discography of K J Singh can be checked here.)

PART 1 -Straight Q&A
From Guitar Singh (you were fondly known as that - why? any story behind that) of Graffiti to K J Singh Producer/Sound Engineer - how did that all happen? Tell us about your …

……and ye ye this time its for real!!! I know, the fake ones were damn entertaining. Hopefully the real one will not disappoint you.

Here is my latest theory on Ramu. The filmmaker who made Satya and Compnay died long back, most probably during a film shoot. An aspiring but less talented guy who was AD on the same film set, died with Ramu. The AD knew that now there is no way to make his debut and also because the factory closed down ( so no more ADs will turn director), the guy’s ghost got into Ramu’s body. Ramu’s ghost was ofcourse more eager to meet the menakas and urvashis of other world, so he never bothered to check the status of his body. Its no more “directed by RGV” but “ghost directed by RGV”. since its all black screen, one cannot make out the word “ghost”. we …

Adoor Gopalakrishnan has resolutely been following a style of storytelling on the big screen that has a definite vision and sincerity of approach, never compromising with his ideals as a creative persona. For him, filmmaking is more than an art form � it is also a social statement and documentation. His sincerity to his craft is unquestionable, and his integrity towards it comes to the fore in his resolute decision not to make a film outside the immediate environs of Kerala as self-admittedly, he would fail to capture the societal nuances of places whose social history he does not know. Gopalakrishnan is in the process of completing his new film, which like his previous film �Naalu Pennungal� (Four Women), is also based on short stories of legendary Malayalam author Thakazhi Shiva Sankara Pillai. Here Gopalakrishnan responds to a range of questions on cinema as he sees it:

Q: The �Naalu Pennungal� …